ABSTRACT
From the Greeks, the organic church acquired the organic metaphor of civil society's being, almost literally, a "body-politic." Greek philosophy has come down to us as a- or anti-covenantal in almost every respect. There was one important countervailing trend mitigating the linkage between the organic and hierarchical models. Paul referred to the fellowship of Christian believers as a koinonia, the Greek term that is closest to describing a federal relationship or, in other words, a confederacy of believers. The development of medieval monasticism was an attempt to restore the early Christian communities and their vita apostolica with its ideal of holy koinonia. This becomes particularly important in medieval Christianity in the differences between Christian societies organized out of monastic Christianity, as in Scotland, and those organized out of a hierarchical church, as in Italy. The Reformation initiated by Martin Luther in 1517 continued the organic orientation of Catholic Christendom.
